Generic S905x boards

DragonDroid · April 6, 2024 at 5:45 PM New

Hi. I have some 'bricked' s905x boards that when i use burning tool they always stuck at '7% Formatting' and get error DiskInit Error! Tried many different images but looks like emmc is broken.

Tried to boot from SD card using LE, and tried all compatible dtb files but boards don't even try to boot from SD card.

Finally, tried LE for Khadas VIM1 and for Le Potato, and boards boot and work from SD normally (without wifi but ethernet works ok)

I noticed, that the files on SD for generic s905x and those of VIM1&Le Potato are totally different! Is that the reason tha generic images don't boot?

Thanks

frakkin64 · April 7, 2024 at 12:21 AM New

Are you talking about the box image? It includes the same DTBs in the board specific images, more than likely your eMMC is wiped to the level that there is no boot loader, so using the Khadas/Le Potato image includes u-boot bootloader in the SD image. Amlogic boards will look for a bootloader on the eMMC, and fall back to the SD/USB.

The box image does not have a bootloader, which is probably why it won't boot, it relies/assumes your eMMC has a working bootloader.

**chewitt** · April 7, 2024 at 8:24 AM New

frakkin64 explanation sounds right. The LePotato dtb has no WiFi SDIO node and the VIM1 forces a Broadcom chipset so if boxes have Realtek/Qualcomm chips things either won't probe or will probe the wrong chip and fail.

Current LE12 nightly images have changes to boot files and even on VIM1/LePotato you'll now see an /amlogic folder that has all the dtb files inside (not just VIM1 or LePotato dtb) so experimenting is a simple as editing the dtb name in extlinux.conf.

DragonDroid · April 7, 2024 at 9:29 AM New

1st image is the beneric files on sd and 2nd image is the Le Potato files on SD.

What i am saying is that the 1st SD which includes autoscripts and boot files doesn't even turn on my TV and never boots. But Le Potato SD, boots normally even if it doesn't have any boot or autoscript files!

**chewitt** · April 7, 2024 at 9:56 AM New

The "box" image has bootscripts to hook into vendor u-boot and make it run an LE image. Your box has nothing on eMMC (either it has been erased or eMMC has failed) so there is no vendor u-boot to hook into and thus no boot with that image.

The "board" images for VIM1 and LePotato have modern u-boot compiled for those specific boards installed (to the boot media: in this case an SD card) and these use modern u-boot config files (extlinux.conf) not Amlogic vendor boot script garbage. The files used to create/sign modern u-boot are device-specific so it's unintentional and unusual that your box can also boot with them.

DragonDroid · April 7, 2024 at 10:47 AM New

Most probably emmc has failed as you said! You've been very specific on explaining boot methods and thanks a lot. So I should keep using them only using Le Potato image (VIM1 only gives my one working USB port) installed and booted from SD card?

**chewitt** · April 7, 2024 at 11:12 AM New

I'd suggest to use an LE12 nightly and experiment with different dtb files. The p212 file will probably work best.

DragonDroid · April 7, 2024 at 11:27 AM New

Tried LE12 nightly 'box' image using ALL p212 dtb files (All s905x files) but no boot.

Also tested LE12 nightly 'Le Potato' image using Le Potato dtb and p212 dtb, both working the same!

**chewitt** · April 8, 2024 at 8:47 AM New

Quote from DragonDroid

Tried LE12 nightly 'box' image using ALL p212 dtb files (All s905x files) but no boot.
Also tested LE12 nightly 'Le Potato' image using Le Potato dtb and p212 dtb, both working the same!

This was already explained (twice). Thread closed to prevent need for a third round.